Sunday, 23 May 2010

1001 Beers ......

1001 Beers You Must Try Before You Die is the latest collection of beers, photos and tasting notes to make you thirsty and keen to travel. This one is a bloody monster, with 960 pages, weighing over four pounds and includes (obviously) over a thousand beers.

Leading beer writer, Adrian Tierney Jones has put together this collection and is credited as "general editor" but the point of difference for this book is that he has cajoled over 40 of the World's best beer writers to do a lot of the legwork and write many of the reviews. This has the benefit that each page you turn to is written by someone different and this makes it more readable and enjoyable to dip in and out of.

It brings back memories of beers that we have enjoyed and increases the ambition to try others of the world's greatest beers many of which are becoming more available in this country but many others that will require a journey.

The illustration is strong with hundreds of colour photos, mostly of beer, bottles and glasses, but many also of labels, breweries and old adverts. The typeface is easy to read for such a large tome with a maximum of two beers per page.

With 1001 beers an index is essential and the book has two for that reason. At the front we can find a list of beers by country and at the rear a list by brewery. There is no real need for an index by beer style as the book itself is separated into five chapters, Amber, Blond, White, Dark and Specialty.

Although most of the beer reviews include the story of the beer or brewery as well as the tasting notes this book majors on the beers themselves - there are no chapters on beer and food, no maps, no travel notes, no chapter on how beer is made - it showcases beer and beer alone, cramming in 1001 and for that reason it is an absolute winner and another necessary volume for any collection.

Cover price is £20 but mine came from Amazon at a very reasonable £13.50 - for such a heavy book, the postage was probably that much alone.

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About Me

Steve Williams is a beer drinker who wishes to share his love of beer with you. He was CAMRA's Regional Director for Greater London from 2004 to 2009. (The views expressed here are my own and may not necessarily be endorsed by the Campaign for Real Ale though)
Steve won the London Ale Taster competition in 2010
Always available for beer tastings, can lead London pub crawls, after dinner talks on beer, pubs or history, general consumer consultancy and judging beer competitions.